A Fame Game win 'very much death by a thousand cuts' for bookies

All-in doubles and multi operators regard a Fame Game win in Australia's biggest race as the worst result in years after "popular winners" in all the feature races so far this spring.

Wagering operators Sportsbet and Ladbrokes report that not only the big punters, but the "rank and file" are all in the corner of the Japanese raider in closing legs of a multitude of doubles and multis.

Sportsbet provided examples of two large multis from small investments going into Fame Game to win the Melbourne Cup.

"Apart from the bets above, there's a stack of other small bets for huge collects," Sportsbet's head of trading Raph Lewski said. "A Fame Game win would be very much death by a thousand cuts.

"It's safe to say we will be watching through our fingers next Tuesday.

Ladbrokes head bookmaker Jason Scott reported a similar scenario is being faced by the Queensland-based operation.

"We are looking at a large negative result just from pre-post betting and multi bets if Fame Game wins the Melbourne Cup," Scott said. "It is the sheer volume of these doubles that is the big issue for us.

"We have taken a number of sizable doubles, especially with Winx into Fame Game, but we haven't seen these sort of numbers still in play at this stage of the spring before."

Ladbrokes' two biggest Winx (Cox Plate), Fame Game (Melbourne Cup) doubles would strip more than $120,000 ($2500 total investment) from the operation while Scott also revealed "there are more than 100 bets of Winx into Fame Game to win about $2000 each".